Sinn Fein has accused the DUP of checking out of Stormont powersharing and making no effort to find a way to restore devolution.

The party’s vice-president, Michelle O’Neill, also claimed the UK Government’s confidence and supply deal with the DUP at Westminster was now the “greatest obstacle” preventing the resurrection of coalition government in Belfast.

Mrs O’Neill launched the twin-pronged attack on the DUP and Conservatives as she emerged from a meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley at Stormont.

Mrs Bradley is meeting all the main Stormont parties on Thursday as she continues to consider ways to revive devolution.

Mrs O’Neill said she also urged Mrs Bradley to take action to cut the pay of Assembly members amid the ongoing political crisis.

Northern Ireland has been without a properly functioning powersharing government for almost 16 months, due to the bitter stand-off between the two main parties.

A row that broke out over a botched green energy scheme, and widened to encompass long-standing disputes such as the Irish language and gay marriage, shows no sign of resolution.

Negotiations to restore the institutions have effectively been on ice since Valentine’s Day, when the talks broke up in acrimonious circumstances amid claim and counter-claim about a proposed deal to break the impasse.

Mrs O’Neill said that while she had met DUP leader Arlene Foster since that fall-out, at events to which they had both been invited, she insisted there had been no “meaningful” engagement in the last two and half months.

“We haven’t had a real or meaningful engagement with the DUP because they have checked out,” she said.

“Since the talks collapsed the DUP have been preoccupied by Brexit, they have been preoccupied with their relationship with the Tories at Westminster and they are not engaged in terms of trying to get these institutions up and running again.

“I don’t think they should get carried away with their supply and confidence deal, which we all know will be short-lived.

“The effort should be here, it should be on negotiations, it should be on getting these institutions up and running and functioning for all people.”

Mrs O’Neill said Thursday’s meeting represented the first real attempt by Mrs Bradley to engage with the parties in two and half months.

The senior Sinn Fein representative said the discussion inside Stormont House was “frank”.